Special Stories User Guide

8. Extra Actions

Tapping the Actions button at the top left in the main view
reveals a choice of extra actions. In version 2.8.0 and later, unless
you have disabled the Child Safety Gate in Settings, you will
have to enter the answer to a simple calculation in order to
proceed.

Some of these will permanently remove your existing stories
from Special Stories, so use with caution:

Settings

Tap the Settings button to inspect or change the app's
settings. Refer back
to Chapter
7 for details of all the settings options.

View Online Documentation

This displays the current online documentation for Special Stories,
from the Special iApps website. If you are not running the latest
version, we suggest you update the app, otherwise the documentation may
not exactly describe the version you are using. You will need to have
an Internet connection (using Wi-Fi or cellular data) in order to access
the documentation.

This will launch Apple's Safari app: you can prevent this by
disabling Safari in the Settings app (in General >
Restrictions) or by running Special Stories using Apple's
Guided Access facility.

Manage Collections

As explained in
in Chapter
6, you can group stories together into named collections. Tapping
this button presents a view showing all the collections you have, and
allows you to add and remove them, rename them and select which one you
want to be working with. Refer back
to Chapter
6 for full details.

Print Story

You can use this either to print a story to an AirPrint-enabled
printer, or to email a story in PDF format for subsequent printing.

When you tap this button, you are presented with the list of stories
you have created: tap the title of the one you would like to print or
email. You are then presented with a choice of Send to Printer
or Email as PDF. Choose the option you prefer, and then follow
Apple's standard dialogs for printing or sending an email. If you have
more than one collection, you will be prompted to choose a collection,
and then to select a story from that collection.

The font face and text size in the printed story are determined by
the Font and Large Text settings, just as when viewing
the story within Special Stories, as described
in Chapter
7.

Please Note

To print directly, you must already be able to print from Apple's
standard apps, e.g. Mail and Safari. If you cannot print from these,
you will not be able to print from Special Stories. However, provided
you have an email account set up on your device, you can always email a
story as a PDF attachment, and then pick up the email on a Mac or PC
that has access to a printer, and print from there. Alternatively, there
are programs available to AirPrint-enable the printer queues on a Mac or
PC: we successfully use
Printopia
2 for Mac.

Export Story and Import Story

These 2 buttons allow you to transfer stories between devices. So
you could, for instance, export from an iPhone and import to an iPad or
an iPod touch. From here you can also copy your stories to Special
Words and to Apple Books (formerly iBooks), and email them in EPUB and
PDF formats. Except in the case of PDF, these options allow you to
transfer the spoken words for a story, as well as its text and
pictures.

Tapping Export Story first presents you with a list of the
stories you have created: tap the title of the one you would like to
export. If you have more than one collection, you will be prompted to
choose a collection, and then to choose from the stories in that
collection. An alternative to exporting a single story is to export
the whole collection: to do this, select All stories in
collection at the top of the list of stories.

You are then presented with a choice of Use Email
and Use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and Copy to ..., as shown
in the screenshot on the
rightabove. You will then be
presented with a list of possible formats to export. The available
formats depend on whether you have chosen to export an individual story
or a whole collection.

Exporting using Email

You can use this to send an individual story, or a whole
collection, to yourself or somebody else, as an email attachment.
When exporting a single story, the available formats are:

Special Stories

This sends the story in Special Stories format, including text,
pictures and sounds. The recipient will only be able to read and
edit it if they have installed Special Stories on their device.
This is the only format that can be imported back into Special
Stories.

Special Words

Suitable if the recipient has Special Words or Special Words Pro
on their device.

EPUB

This sends the story in a format suitable for opening in iBooks
on iOS 6-11, Apple Books on iOS 12 and later, and in iBooks or Apple
Books on OS X or macOS. The story includes text, pictures and
sounds.

PDF

This sends the story as a PDF file, with text and pictures but no
sounds, as described above for Print Story.

To export, simply choose the desired option, add the recipient to the
otherwise already completed email message, and send. When exporting a
whole collection of stories, the EPUB and PDF options are not
available.

Copy to ...

You can use this to copy a single story or a whole collection in
Special Stories format to a variety of destinations, as shown in the
example screenshot on the
rightabove:

To Special Words

This option only appears if you have both Special Stories and
Special Words (or Special Words Pro) installed on your device, and
you have chosen format Special Words.

When you choose this option, your device switches to the Special
Words app, where you should select Add new profile. Each
page in the story is transferred as its own word, picture and sound
card. If you have long lines of text in the story, you may need to
edit them afterwards in Special Words to make them shorter.

It is also possible to transfer words, pictures and sounds in the
opposite direction, from Special Words to Special Stories, as
explained in
the Special
Words User Guide.

To Apple Books (iBooks)

If you have Apple's Books app (iOS 12 or later) or iBooks app
(iOS 11 and earlier) installed on your device, and have chosen
format EPUB, selecting Copy to Books will allow
you to add a copy of the story to your Books library. To turn the
pages in Books, swipe across the text. To play the sound for each
page, tap the picture: sounds are not played automatically as you
turn the pages. The font size for the text in the book is
determined by whether the Large Text setting in Special
Stories is ON or OFF when you export the story:
you cannot adjust the text size from within Books (although you can
choose to view using a different font face).

To another device using AirDrop

If you have another device with Special Stories installed, and
both devices support AirDrop, you can AirDrop the story or
collection to the other device. When you accept the file on the
other device, Special Stories will automatically launch, and allow
you to import the story or collection.

To certain cloud-storage apps

If you have installed the DropBox, Google Drive or Microsoft
OneDrive app on your device, you can copy the story or collection to
these cloud services. You may like to use this to create cloud
backups of important stories, or to share stories with other people
who have Special Stories.

If your device runs iOS 10, and you have enabled the iCloud Drive
app, you can copy the story or collection to iCloud Drive by using
the Copy to ... button and selecting the option Add To
iCloud Drive. This is not possible at iOS 9 or earlier. In
iOS 11 and later, Add to iCloud Drive is replaced
by Save to Files.

Please Note

Content and settings in Special Stories are not automatically
synchronized between devices connected to the same iCloud account: it is
left to you to manually export and/or import on each device, on a
collection-by-collection or individual story basis.

You may want to use one of the above options as a backup facility, if
you've carefully added stories that you want to be sure you won't lose
(e.g. if the device is damaged or lost). In this case, we recommend
selecting Use Email, with format Special Stories, as
this is the only option that allows for re-importing into Special
Stories and updating subsequently.

Importing using Email

To import a story or collection previously exported via email, you
need to view the email in the Mail app on the importing device, and tap
on the attachment in the email message. If the attachment is in Special
Stories format, this will automatically open the Extra Actions
view in Special Stories and ask you to confirm importing the data. You
will be offered the choice of creating a new collection containing just
that story, or adding the story (or replacing an existing story) in any
of your existing collections. If the attachment is in EPUB or PDF
format, it cannot be opened in Special Stories, but if you have iBooks
installed, you will instead be to able to add it to your iBooks
library.

Tapping the Import Story button in the Extra
Actions view and choosing the Use Email option, will pop
up a message reminding you to use the Mail app instead.

Using email export and import, it is also possible to transfer
stories and collections between Special Stories running on Android and
Special Stories running on an Apple mobile device, in either
direction.

Exporting and Importing using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi

You can use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to transfer a story or collection
directly between two devices that both have Special Stories installed,
without having to go via email. The devices must be physically close to
each other, and either (a) have Wi-Fi enabled and be connected to the
same Wi-Fi network, or (b) have Bluetooth enabled. Alternatively, if
both devices have a Lightning connector (as opposed to the older 30-pin
connector), and are not connected to a Wi-Fi network, but have Wi-Fi
turned on, this will still work. Use the Settings app to turn these on
as necessary, before trying to export and import.

With the Extra Actions view visible on both devices, tap
Export Story, select the story, and choose Use Bluetooth or
Wi-Fi on the source device. Then tap Import Story and
choose Use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi on the destination device.

Each device will prompt you to allow a connection with the other.
Once the data has all been transferred, you will be asked to confirm
importing it into the app on the destination device.

Please Note

Devices running Special Stories 2.6.0 and later cannot connect using
Bluetooth or Wi-Fi with devices running earlier versions. Devices
running iOS 6 can only use this feature over Wi-Fi, not Bluetooth.

When using email or Wi-Fi, you can transfer to/from Android devices
running Special Stories. This is not possible when using Bluetooth,
because iOS and Android have incompatible Bluetooth implementations.

Importing from a Website or Cloud Service

An exported story or collection in Special Stories format can be
hosted on a website, as a file with a .siast suffix. This can
then be imported into Special Stories by visiting the website in Safari
and tapping the link to the file. This will open the Extra
Actions view in Special Stories to import it, just like when
importing from an email attachment.

You can also import a story or collection from a cloud service such
as Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. If you don't have the
relevant app on your device, but you have a shared web link for a
Special Stories .siast file on one of these services, you can
import by visiting the link in Safari, as in the previous paragraph.

Please Note

Using iCloud will NOT automatically backup or restore your
content: you must use the iTunes program on a PC or Mac, or the export
facilities described here.

When you import a story (using email, website, AirDrop, cloud
service, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) if you have already created one or more
stories, you will be offered the choice of replacing any of your
existing stories or adding as a new story. Use the Add new
story option if you don't want to overwrite any of your existing
stories.

If you choose to replace, the story you select will be completely
removed. You cannot undo this once you've done it. This option is
intended primarily for where you have an updated version of an existing
story, and you don't want to keep the old version.

If you choose to add, the imported story will be added as a new one,
without overwriting any existing stories. One use for this is if you've
updated the same story separately on both devices, and want to keep both
sets of updates. You could then merge your updates by using
the Copy button in the page editing view to transfer updates in
one of the stories to the other, and then delete one of the stories:
this is discussed in more detail
in Chapter
5. Be careful, as keeping several stories with the same title can
be confusing.

If you import a whole collection of stories, you similarly have the
choice of adding as a new collection, or replacing one of your existing
ones. If you choose to replace, any existing stories in the collection
will be lost. You cannot undo this once you've done it. If you don't
want to lose any of your existing material, use the Add new
collection option.

When using email to transfer a story or collection, be aware that
there are limits on attachment sizes. Sending the recipient a link to
download from a cloud service will avoid these limits.

Reset

This will undo all changes you have made to Special Stories
since you installed it on the device. This includes removing all
collections and all stories you have created, and restoring the
app's settings to their default values. You cannot undo this once
you've done it.

To prevent accidental use of the Reset button, turn
the Enable Editing option off in the Settings, as described
in Chapter
4.

After confirming that you wish to reset the app, you have to
reconfirm by typing the word “Reset” into the box that
appears. This is to reduce the chances of a child resetting the app
unintentionally.